Gripla - 20.12.2018, Qupperneq 206

GRIPLA206
ence of Icelandic law upon norwegian law has been emphasized. this
essay aims to examine the specific relationships between some individual
passages in local law, on the one hand, and what the general canon law
stated, on the other hand. It is possible, sometimes likely, that the main
influence upon Icelandic law came via norway, but we should take Bishop
Árni’s explicit source references seriously, at least. the rich presence of
European canon lawbooks in the libraries of Iceland’s cathedrals also sug-
gests that the influence from general European canon law may have been
more direct than previous scholarship acknowledges.
What can we learn from Icelandic law about emergency baptisms,
such as the one that aimed to save Þorsteinn of Hléskógar’s child? the
older Christian Law of Iceland states that baptisms should properly be
performed by priests. the law includes a longish disquisition about travel-
ling to the house of the priest and about what to do if he is not found at
home. But if the priest cannot be found, or there is no time to summon
him because a newly born child is too weak and dying, it is necessary for
a layman to perform an emergency baptism, and the older Christian Law
contains detailed regulations for any such eventuality. the text instructs
what words to utter, and that the child should be thrice immersed in water,
though the baptism is valid even if water is only poured over the child, just
as in European canon law.9 If there is no fresh water, sea water will do;
if there is no sea water, either, then the child may be immersed in snow
instead, although not so much that it might catch a cold and come into peril
of death. In other words, the older Christian Law of Iceland allows a child
to be baptized with freshwater, salt water, or snow.10 the Icelanders did
not allow baptism in saliva, as was permitted in the norwegian law codes
for frostathing and Gulathing, for example.11
the Younger Christian Law of Iceland, composed by Bishop Árni in
the 1270s, is much more restrictive. one should not baptize “except in
2.720–732, and Hans Henning Hoff, Hafliði Másson und die Einflüsse des römischen Rechts
in der Grágás, Ergänzungsbände zum reallexikon der Germanischen altertumskunde 78
(Berlin: de Gruyter, 2012).
9 R. H. Helmholz, The Spirit of Classical Canon Law (athens, Ga.: university of Georgia
Press, 1996), 212.
10 Grágás: Konungsbók, 3–7.
11 Norges gamle love, 1.132; Den eldre Gulatingslova, ed. by Bjørn Eithun, Magnus rindal, and
tor ulset, norrøne tekster 6 (oslo: riksarkivet, 1994), 44; See also Landro, “Kristenrett
og kyrkjerett,” 30; Sveinbjörn Rafnsson, Af fornum lögum og sögum, 40–41.